Love Lies
by FlameMe-Flamer
Summary: Yaoi:Aanuko.BetterSum inside.Zuko thinks of a better way of capturing Aang:staging something that looks like friendship.What’ll happen2the bond that forms between them?angsty and dark in chaps2come.rated4later chaps.


**Nasyki/Dark Cherub:** Well, and this is my **second** fanfic of this series. I've become somewhat of a fan for this series and I cannot help these things…thoughts that fly about my head without a given direction. If you please: read, enjoy, and review this fanfiction. Somewhat a mainstream idea spurring into a common storyline that I wish would seem to stick out more than the idea would initially receive. Please excuse my tardiness for chapters to come, if you look up my screen name above you will see that I have many other stories that I am working on and I post nothing until those have every next chapter done. Though because this is a different account I will post these when I am ready and done.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own '_Avatar: The Last Air Bender_' and I never said I did so no suing!

**Warnings:** Yaoi! Betrayal! Lemon! Lime! Foul language! Abuse! Rape! Tragedy!

**Summary:** Yaoi: Aanuko. He knew it was pathetic…Prince Zuko —exiled from the Fire Nation by his own _father_. The matter over something so trivial, turning about so wrongly. Yet now, to repent he was forced to spend his days chasing after a _12-year-old_ child to get back what he lost so idiotically. It didn't matter in the least that it was **the** **Avatar** that he had to capture; to him and anyone that met the boy the avatar was still a mere 12-year-old. But the worst part of it was that he was losing _miserably_ to that 12-year-old. Zuko had tried quite literally everything that he knew of. He tried every tactic he had learned as a child…he tried every idea so small and insignificant as long as it had come to mind, he had completely exorcized every way there was weather up or down, left or right. But he was still going two steps forward one step back! Yet it appeared to him that from the beginning he had been chasing a shadow that would disappear with the light of his flame. Hopes lost. —What choice does he have left? Perhaps trying something that he himself would not have thought of…something the softhearted avatar would never expect, though his friends _might_. Perhaps as the old saying goes… 'if you can't beat them, join them,' would apply in an almost sadistic way. To lure a trusting boy away from his den is easy if you leave a trail to fallow. Friendship is best offered when personal gain is involved.

**Love Lies**

By: Nasyki/Dark Cherub

Chapter 1 (_Prologue_)

Scene One of Two:_ Ponderings_

The room was warm. _It could have been warmer._ The room was lonely. _It could have been lonelier. _His hopes were hopeless. _-As hopes often are._ His breaths were shallow. _But he was still breathing. _He was meditating, yet all had already been lost. _Life is about losing some battles._ One person was on his mind, hazed with hate. _Hate is a confusing emotion. _He was haunted by the past. _He would eventually move on._ There was… _There was… _—nothing… _—everything…_

**To live for.**

-anymore. _-now._

He was once a prince.

—Now he was nothing.

He once had no way to return.

—Now he had a way.

He once had ambitions to use that way.

—Now it seemed pointless.

He once knew he could win the war.

—Now, as he lost all the battles,

He was running out of ideas.

—Now that he had thought of everything…

There was nothing.

He was tired now, more than anything else. -Tired…and sick. Sick of losing…sick of fighting…tired of the constant **pattern**.

His breath filled the air, the flames on the candles lit around him, pulsing to his breath.

His fortune was never a good one. Thoughts that had so often plagued his mind only helped to continue to do so now.

'I want to win,' a voice so small within him cried out.

_It's pointless. _Was the response he felt come from the flames around him.

'I have to try.' Again so small did his voice come from within him.

The flames flickered to his breath. _You already have._

'There is a way.' Determination.

_If there were you would have found it by now._

The man breathed, and shifted slightly. "I need to beat him," his voice came out hard. "He is just a child. In all his years he is just a child."

He paused.

"Maybe I am thinking to much into this."

Pause.

"Maybe through all my attempts I am…in the end over-estimating him on an intellectual level." He breathed; the candles flickered.

"He is just a child. Through all his years he is just a child." He shifted.

Regret.

"**I** was just a child." He thought. "Maybe I over-estimated him…like I did myself." He held his breath. "I trust in him to be powerful for my own want of power. For a goal for myself to reach…for myself to surpass."

He let out his breath in a hiss. "He is just a child." He held his breath out. "The avatar, that holds the hopes of all…including myself –has the burden of all. Maybe if I disappoint myself, let my hopes for his knowledge fall…then maybe with dropping my hopes in him…for him…I'll win." He gasped. The candles flicker.

"But how shall I beat him?" His breaths steady. His eyes open halfway…the candles flicker. "He is just a child." His half laden eyes hold the flame that flickers.

He let out a slow breath of the words, "he is just a child." Then he stops suddenly. His eyes open. He raises a hand to his eye where the burn…marred him still. "_He_ never treated me like a child," and he paused again. "I never treated him like a child. Yet here, I still lose."

He closed his eyes and breathed slowly. "Maybe to win…I treat him how I never was treated. To win, must I lose?" The flames flickered, his eyes narrowed, his hand fell to his lap. "Must I lose?" he whispered.

"To win…I must give what I never got." The light flickered. "To win must I lose!" He called. It echoed…yet never did his answer reply. He closed his eyes and held his breath. The flames grew. He closed his eyes more tightly now.

"There is nothing yet that I haven't tried. No thought did I not exercise? Yet here I hesitate as I have never before. To treat him how I never was, I lose only to win my battle with him. I do not wish to win and lose…yet that is to give none and still take. Can't I simply win!" And all was said in one breath, as his eyes closed tighter still.

"Can't I simply win it all?" he whispered. The flames died down. He held his breath, but none answered his call. He half opened his eyes. His half laden eyes hold the flame that dies.

In the darkness the room cools and he shivers.

"To win…I will lose." Decided.

One flame lights. "He will always be a child."

Scene Two of Two: _How Do You Treat a Child?_

The room was empty. He sat alone on his bed. His mind wandered. It was decided that he would beat the avatar by underestimating him.

Yet through all his time searching for the avatar Zuko had continued to raise his expectations and he knew not where to lower them to…he lay back on his bed and took a deep breath. He had to begin somewhere…

The avatar…

That was a good place to start.

The avatar… –master of all the elements –lived through hundreds of lives. –Powerful. –Strong. –a symbol of hope, of pride for wherever he was reborn. –The last air-bender. –A monk. –Kind-hearted and strong-willed. –Determination, and a symbol to the weak to look forward to living, for he would bring all out of the darkness.

That is what he is. **The** avatar. How could you underestimate that? Zuko sunk into his bed and closed his eyes in thought.

But that was not completely it…that was what the avatar was…the 'who' of the matter was a completely different story.

The avatar was… –Small…-very small indeed. –He was pale-toned and easily imagined smiling.. –He was brave, yet full of himself. –Easy to lose track of. –He was everything in battle, though hard to keep up with sometimes. –He was caring? –Though intense somewhat gentle…and playful? –Some described him as companionate. –He was significant. –He wore orange. –Had strange blue arrows on his body. –He could run. –and fly…with that thing…pole, or glider? –He was immature. –childish. –he was young. –didn't eat meat. –and was, completely captivating.

That was all that Zuko could come up with. He lifted his arms and rubbed his eyes. Out of all this time he had spent in search of the avatar that was all the information he could gather through experience, and questioning…all that research was: nothing.

When looking at the tip of an iceberg, how are you to judge its size?

How could he underestimate something that he didn't even know anything about?

Zuko sighed and let his arms on the bed. The unknown…was…distressing. Maybe if he looked at it in another way…another perspective outside of their bodies…how would another look at Aang? Just as one person looks at another. Who was Aang –not the avatar –as a person?…he paused…

Aang was… –a 12-year-old boy, with the world resting on his slim shoulders.

Aang really…was simply…a child.

A child? What was a child?

Innocence…purity…naïveté…trusting…blind… —and to top it off, he was a monk!

Zuko blinked. A child monk! How easy to underestimate a simple boy! A child! With all the good and denseness' a child has but to add on the qualities of a monk! That would make him ever so weak!

A child with a power greater than any one man in this world, who could easily be manipulated if you got on his good side, and just swayed his perception ever so slightly. A child whom knows guilt like no other, a monk who wishes to help all!

If Zuko could only play the role of friend and not foe, he could learn everything of the avatar, and lead him into a flawless trap!

But with someone who wishes to befriend one and all the task could be won in a day! Then observations could be noted thoroughly in a very short amount of time if trusted easily…and winning would be assured. Victory…in all aspects. He would regain all that was lost…Victory. The road to…

-End Prologue-

…_To be continued._

**Nasyki/Dark Cherub:** I'm very sorry about the quality of this chapter. It's even worse than my usual prologues. Let me explain…in this chapter I attempted a new style. I know it's unusual but I had to try it. Writing is everything, but if you don't try every aspect of it, you will never have an understanding on all accounts of the way the words flow from your fingertips. Please tell me what you think. Was this acceptable? Poor? What? I really didn't like it as much as some of my other fanfiction, but a second opinion is more than necessary. With writers rating their own work they are blinded by their pride of their work…and it's utterly pointless to do so. The theme of this chapter was patterns, and conflict. So what do you think? –you review I will get the next chapter up sooner. (Not a threat, a bribe?…perhaps.) **Oh, and by the way, clarification…scene one happens after scene two. I just changed the order of it for reasons only, I as the author will know.** ((evil smile))Thank you for reading this chapter, I hope that you'll stay around for the next chapter.


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